Runners of Tides

Running the Oregon Coast Trail

Even far back on an inland cliff, waves boom on the headlands—sometimes so you feel it through the ground," says Lisa Smith, who along with her husband, Dustin, ran over 100 Oregon seacoast miles last spring. As waves crashed on rocks and broke onto sandy beaches, the pair explored legs of a giant trail—the 360-mile Oregon Coast Trail. For the duo running the coast, the sound, the smell, the feel was distinctly different than anywhere else.

During the previous winter, Lisa and Dustin traveled from their home in Kalispell, MT, to southern Oregon to visit Dustin’s parents in Gold Beach, where he grew up. While there, they ran along the beach from Cape Sebastian to Pistol Rivers. "It was so beautiful,"says Lisa. "I couldn’t believe we hadn’t already done a running trip there."

As I interview them at their home, Lisa is buzzing about, unable to sit down for longer than a minute. She bubbles with trip lore as Dustin lunges into the conversation with a huge smile. They one-up each other with stories from the trail.

With 25K and 50K Nordic ski marathons to their credit, distance is their gig. For Dustin, a big wall rock and ice climber who spends his days as a power company realty specialist, and Lisa, an ultramarathoning social worker, a vacation running along the Oregon coast was simply a new angle on distance. This past summer, they fast-packed 80 miles of Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness in two days.

The April Oregon coast running vacation demanded extensive planning. Since towns conveniently sprawl every few miles down Highway 101, logistics of meals and lodging were easy. One major hurdle: their 7-year-old daughter. To make it a family affair, the grandparents drove the baby-sitting bus and shuttled the Smiths for point-to-point runs.

Like a major expedition, the pair charted where and what everyone would be doing each day on a spreadsheet: their running locations, daughter’s activities, shuttle pick-ups and drop-offs, and lodging. With daily distances ranging from eight to 22 miles, they opted for trail and beach routes, road running as little as possible.

Their chosen routes were part of the Oregon Coast Trail, which connects routes from the Columbia River to the California border. Traversing beaches and forests, grasslands and dunes, all interspersed with thousand-foot rock sculptures, the 360-mile trail parallels Highway 101, sometimes tying in portions of the road. Dotted with small seaside burgs selling saltwater taffy, the route links state parks, public land, and a few private parcels before it finishes south of Brookings.

In contrast to other states, Oregon has protected its coastline for the public. In 1911, Governor Oswald West designated the Beaver State’s coast as a public highway, thus preserving access to its beaches and headlands. While some of the seacoast is closed today to motor vehicles, it remains public. Public beaches constitute 200 miles of the Oregon Coast Trail, while 70 miles travel over inland trails and 90 miles follow roadways. This public access allowed the pair to build an itinerary hopping on and off the trail for various legs.

In retrospect, both Dustin and Lisa voted their first run—a point-to-point 22-miler from Harris Beach to Samuel H. Boardman Park—the best of their finds. "It had everything," Dustin smiles, "the beach, natural bridges, wildlife, foliage tunnels, cliffs, and incredible scenery." Within a couple miles, the trail traversed an exposed cliff, cut inland through a fern forest blooming with trilliums and smelling of fresh earthy soil, dropped 500 feet to the beach, then climbed again. Recover and repeat: down and up, down and up. "It was a long day with lots of elevation change," says Lisa. "We walked a lot of the uphills."

Long, dense manzanita shrub tunnels sheltered the pair as they ran high above the beach along a ledge, the shrubbery protecting them from winds, rains, and steep exposures. After the brushy tunnels, eight feet tall and 50 feet long, the pair exploded out of the hedges, abruptly atop 300-foot cliffs. "When you run out of a tunnel to the beach with its expansive view," remarks Lisa, "the contrast is staggering."

As a result of the Oregon coast receiving upward of 76 inches of rain annually, thick redwood cedar forests dot the route. "Running through old growth cedars with ferns taller than our heads felt like dinosaur-land," muses Lisa. "It felt like 10 miles of cush was underfoot." With years and years of cedar and fir falling on the forest floor, trails build up a soft, springy duff. Dustin raves, "It was a great surface to run, with maybe an inch or so of compression."

"We stopped often to take in the scenery," says Dustin as he recounts watching feral goats by natural arches. On beach sections, seals and sea otters followed them up the coast.

As they ran north, they encountered local trail volunteers—some claiming a three- to four-mile section as theirs to pamper. In this climate, with vegetation that grows almost overnight, trail maintenance requires constant vigilance. Some parts can easily grow over within a year. "A little old Mary Poppins in a Minnie Pearl hat was raking and sweeping her piece of trail," recalls Lisa. Chattering with spunky Monica for an hour, the pair learned about her trail work. She provides her own trail signage for her four miles, as she doesn’t think the signage is very good overall on the trail. Further on, Dustin remembers, "We startled a retired guy by himself with a wheelbarrow re-routing a piece of trail by a stream, making it more scenic."

As a final coup to their first day running, the trail rounded a large rock promontory. Between waves, the pair shot around the point. "That’s where a tide book comes in handy," says Lisa. Had they reached the head later in the day, they would have been barred by waves crashing high against the cliff face.

Their first day’s run ended at a trail closure. Access is restricted in a few places along the Oregon Coast Trail. The rare snowy plover—a sparrow-sized, sand-colored bird—camouflages itself in the open sand to nest. On the endangered species list since 1993, the plover is easily disturbed during its breeding and nesting seasons, prompting closures from March 15 to September 15.

During the following days, Lisa and Dustin ran an eight-mile beach section from Hunter Creek to Cape Sebastian, another eight miles in famous coastal drizzle on the narrow historic old coast road originally built for carriages to Otter Point, and 12 miles round trip with 1,700 feet elevation gain up Humbug Mountain and down. Then they rested.

The duo resumed their adventures north of Florence, where the 110-year-old Heceta Head Lighthouse sits 205 feet above the ocean, its automated beacon seen from 21 miles out at sea. Although the trails here deviate from the Oregon Coast Trail, the pair opted for nearby paths looping through Cape Perpetua Scenic Area. On a 10-mile circle, they ran through old growth forests with sword ferns overhead and moss creeping across forest floor and tree trunks alike. "The trail went up, up, up," laughs Lisa, "a gnarly uphill." But the effort paid off with sightings of elk.

For their final runs, Lisa and Dustin hit the sandy beaches of Yaquina Bay south of Newport and Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area outside Florence. On beaches, they avoided sinking in softer sands by aiming for the low-angled "concrete," as Lisa calls it: darker sand down near the water line. "At first, I thought ‘Wow! An endless long beach,’" she recalls, "but after a while, that’s all it was: an endless, long beach."

Running to Seal Rock from Yaquina, the pair dodged dune buggies and came to know another coastal phenomenon: wind. According to Dustin, it was hell. Partway through the day, they crashed for a nap up in the beach grasses—the only place the wind didn’t howl.

After a night at a motel in Florence, the pair began their dunes run right from their doorstep, following the beach and trails tucked within the rolling grassland dunes. In the morning, they rode a tailwind down a pleasant 10-mile run on an open beach. On their return, however, the 25–30 m.p.h. headwind slowed their pace. "The wind sandblasted our shins—nature’s exfoliation!" chuckles Dustin. "And when we hit that headwind, I felt like yelling, ‘Taxi!’" To get out of the winds, the pair crossed inside the dunes, where sinky sands tired them out fast. Lisa recalls, "It was like running through a nightmare, where your legs won’t move." For a 20-mile run, that gets rather old.

In spite of the miles on their running shoes, Dustin and Lisa returned home a little larger for the experience—each gaining five pounds, thanks in part to Oregon’s seafood. Nevertheless, for the duo running the Oregon Coast Trail, they experienced a marvel: a work of vision, labor, and love complemented with scenery of a wondrous variety and extraordinary seclusion. For Lisa, that’s what it was all about: "I felt like we were out there by ourselves."

Becky Lomax writes from Whitefish, MT. Although long-distance ski and hiking treks cruise her through the northern Rocky Mountains, she visits the Oregon coast periodically for a whiff of salt air.